Camera

Z1's camera has a sensor with a size of 1/2.3" (most smartphones feature 1/3.2'' sensors)

The beefy 20.7 MP camera of the Sony Xperia Z1 is one of its key features. With a new, larger sensor with a size of 1/2.3" (most smartphones feature 1/3.2" sensors), the Z1's camera will have pixels of decent size, despite their greater number. This should help keep noise at reasonable levels. Meanwhile, the aperture is also quite wide (f/2.0), which should help the camera achieve good results in low-light conditions, as it will allow more light to reach the sensor. Finally, the Z1 has a wide-angle lens of 27mm that will allow you to capture more of the scene in front of you.

Thankfully, the user interface is very easy to use, especially when you're sticking with Sony's Superior Auto mode, which attempts to automatically pick the best settings for you, depending on the scene you're trying to photograph. Still, Sony has also included a Manual mode, which allows you to tweak a variety of different settings on your own.

There are also some other interesting camera modes in the Xperia Z1. For example, there's Info Shot, which will attempt to give you useful information about the object that you're photographing. Or, there's also Social Live (powered by Bambuser), which lets you livestream up to 10 minutes of video directly to your Facebook feed – very cool feature indeed! There is, of course, a number of picture effects, as well as the more interesting AR (augmented reality) effects, which kind of blend the real scene in front of you with a 3D scene of your choice. Looking past the limited number of 3D scenes, you can get some interesting results with these settings.

Obviously, the expectations towards this camera will be quite high, and we're happy to say that it doesn't disappoint. Quite the contrary! Images tend to have very realistic, vivid and lively colors. At the same time, the handset doesn't oversaturate or overwarm them to artificially make them look prettier. Exposure is also great most of the time – the dynamic range is good enough to let you take immersive photographs that feature both darker and lighter areas, and it will all look natural and appealing. The only drawback we can find is that some very bright areas sometimes come out overexposed, but this doesn't happen very often.

Details are superb with the Z1's photos – even when compared to some of the best phone cameras out there, such as the G2. If you view the 20.7 MP photos in actual size, you might dislike the mostly pixelized look, but if you scale these gigantic images down to something like 13 MP and compare them to awesome 13 MP photos such as those from the G2, you'll be surprised to find that the Xperia Z1 actually captures detail quite well. Even when viewed in actual size (100%), the Xperia Z1's photos are finer than those of its biggest rivals.

Unfortunately, such superlatives cannot be said about the Z1's night photos. The handset often messes up the exposure, while colors are also somewhat off. The only thing we can do right now is to hope that Sony will improve this aspect of the camera with a future software update.

On the other hand, we simply love the images that the Xperia Z1 takes indoors. Photos have a great sense of depth and detail, with very realistic and pleasing colors. Thankfully, the LED flash also does a very good job, allowing you to illuminate a small scene.

Sony Xperia Z1 sample photos

1. Sony Xperia Z1

2. Samsung Galaxy S4

3. LG G2

4. Sony Xperia Z1

5. Samsung Galaxy S4

6. LG G2

7. Sony Xperia Z1

8. Samsung Galaxy S4

9. LG G2

10. Sony Xperia Z1 with digital zoom

11. Sony Xperia Z1 with digital zoom

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13. With digital zoom

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24. Panorama

25. Superior Auto

26. Manual mode

27. Superior Auto

28. Manual mode

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31. Strong light

32. Medium light

33. Low light

34. Darkness

When it comes to video recording, though, this surely isn't the best camera we've seen. Mostly smooth in nature, the 1080p video lacks fine details and fails to impress us. Its quality is OK, but it's nothing earth-shattering. Sadly, a 60 fps option is missing to let us record even smoother video, such as the one on the LG G2.

Multimedia

The Sony Xperia Z1 is a great phone to watch video on. The display looks good and is big enough so you can even watch full-length movies on it, if need be. It supports all the popular formats, and even if you manage to find a video that is not playable with the stock player, you should be able to fix this by downloading a capable third-party player from the Play Store.

The Walkman music player is quite cool and simplistic. It sports some interesting features like ClearAudio+, which aims to give some more clarity to the sound, though it's basically a specific EQ preset. There are also some other sound enhancing tools like xLOUD, as well as a regular equalizer with many presents, including a custom option, allowing you to set your own equalizer.

The picture and video galleries are very good. The apps have a fresh and consumer-centric design. The Sony touch has worked well here.

The loudspeaker of the Z1 isn't very powerful, and on top of that, its quality is really low. It's totally lacking any low frequencies, resulting in a high-pitched, harsh and unpleasant sounding.

The supplied earphones, which are the MH-750 model, are capable of reproducing a great sound. They aren't the most comfortable earphones you can find on the market, but if you can live with that, you'll be enjoying some sweet tunes coming out of them. The clip accessory that you can use to attach them to your shirt and use them as handsfree is also a cool touch by Sony.

Display mode:

"Based on the data provided by Sony, the Xperia Z1 should be a champ in terms of battery life. The beefy 3000 mAh battery unit of the smartphone is said to provide about 15 hours of 3G talk-time, and the cool 35 days of 3G stand-by time. If you're using the handset in a 4G area, stand-by time should be just a bit lower at 31 days, which is still a great achievement."

Retarded post from gsmarena. Sony ditched stock android browser long time ago because chrome browser blows out the outdated android stock browser in all sorts of performance categories. So if you're comparing browsing times from chrome and stock browser, you're basically making fun of yourself. Faster browser will always drain the battery faster - Physics 101.

If you don't like it, there is root - install the outdated stock crap and enjoy longer battery life.

GSMA had confirmed that their Z1 unit reviewed was a pre production release and that has a hardware issues...you might not want to rely on their review rather on those sites that uses a retail Z1 (production release).

mannn......... there's one reason I don't like samsung smartphones, wait actually two: blue ass screens and ugly icons design, maybe TFT screens on sony has bad view angles, but, colors are less saturated and whites are more natural. Out of the subject: sense and timescape IUs are my favorites

I don't get why is the viewing of the Z1 is bad when the Z Ultra uses the exact same tech on the screen.

Overall, good score PA and also a very satisfying review. I'm definitely going to trade in my ZL for this. I don't view my phone at an angle anyway and if I wanted to show it to my friends, I'll just give it to them or show it to them head on.
Kudos to SONY for making another great phone.

Not sure why you seem to assume the viewing angles are bad! I have owned this for a full day now and was watching Immortals on it and you can hold the phone flat and still see the images very clearly.

The viewing angles are certainly 100% improved but I am not bothered about that as I never view my content at an angle! If that is your way of viewing content, the viewing angles are fine for that weirdness. Whatever your fancy, the colours are brilliant and literally pop off the screen. Amazing! On the battery point, my phone has been on since 07.00 hrs and I still have 50% juice left after heavy use, it now 19.51hrs! Not crazy about the size but once I held it, it just feels top end/premium! The camera is also amazing.....! Never mind, haters will always hate 'cos their lives are empty but this is a significant improvement on the XZ which was an outstanding phone, by the way......!!

viewing angles are not about privacy...viewing angles give you a better quality viewing while you play a game that requires tilting your phone or for instance, when you're are in your bed watching some video or reading, you dont get to hold your phone in a specific way to get a good image.

Z1 has not the best screen, but still good, much better than the Z.

privacy would be a problem if you had a tablet or laptop..just an opinion.

In the display review part GSMarena said, "A word of warning is due as we've been getting a lot of user reports that not all Xperia Z1 units out there have the same quality screens. It seems some of them come with panels, which have the same properties as the one on the Xperia Z. These of course, may be pre-production samples or as conspiracy theiorists suggests, leftover panels from the Xperia Z production line. Whatever the case, have this one in mind when you are picking up yours."
And its contrast at 100% brightness is 1:1513.

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